Friday, 22 May 2015

KING THUMBS NOSE AT POPE

As
I hurtled along my journey into Anglicanism I was reminded

of
the elephant in the sanctuary. King Henry 8th.

The
nuns had dutifully made us non-Catholic convent girls aware of the lust filled recalcitrant
king. How he’d thumbed his nose at the Pope who wouldn’t annul his first marriage
so he could marry Anne of Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn

The sisters told how
Henry had taken control of the Church in England. Destroyed the monasteries.
Published the bible in English. Beheaded two of his six wives.

We teenage girls, starved
of romance, were enthralled. We
fantasized about being wooed by a king. We ghoulishly imagined having our heads
chopped off. We didn’t care about Church
politics. Nor did we bother about the apostolic succession. This is the belief
that the apostles passed on their authority to their successors and so on.

The succession issue
mattered to me. So I conducted my own research but Google was still a twinkle
in Larry Page’s eye. History books became yet another fascinating side-path in
my personal journey.

Fact is, back in Henry’s
day Church was predominantly about politics and power. First-born sons
inherited the titles land and wealth. So younger siblings often became
ambitious priests. (Think Machiavelli and you are getting warm.) The Church had
become the high road to political influence and wealth accumulation. Vocation,
celibacy and poverty were part of the small print many overlooked.

Of course there were exceptions
on both sides of the English Channel. They brought new meaning to ‘saint’.

Notably the king still gets a surprising mix of good and bad Press. Several Catholic
websites paint him as evil personified, egotistical,
harsh, and insecure. Political
commentators are kinder. We Anglicans tend to ignore the elephant.

In a nutshell Henry
(1491-1547) played the role of a Renaissance man to the hilt. His court was a
centre of scholarly and artistic innovation. Glamorous excess kept him on the
brink of financial ruin.

Real and perceived enemies were tortured and executed. All good fodder for modern movies
and soapies.

Henry’s main dispute with
the Catholic Church was with papal authority. Yet he was quick to institute the
concept of the divine right of kings.

Importantly, despite his excommunication from the Catholic Church, he
continued to believe in its core teachings. He also retained the clergy who
didn’t tick him off politically. So the apostolic line of succession was not
severed. The likes of Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Cranmer had all been
ordained by Rome. That succession would be continued within England and across
the world.

A former political journalist, I wasn’t fazed by Henry’s shenanigans.
But I must admit to being relieved to learn that it is only in England
that monarch is ‘the supreme governor and defender of the faith’. For me separation of State and Church are key.

As defender of the faith and supreme governor of the Church of England Queen Elizabeth even approves the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I was reassured. But there was an important lesson. Donot
confuse Church leadership with God.

Meanwhile,
having bunked the ‘Holy Spirit’ week-end, I’d underestimated the persistence of
the Alpha Course facilitators. They arranged a special Saturday session for
those of us who hadn’t been able to get away!

Convent
raised I was good at guilt. By the Friday I was doing some serious
grovelling to God. I was begging, no exaggeration, for the Holy Spirit to give
me a good solid zap next day. If not it would be like attending a Girl Guide camp and returning with
no merit badge.

Needless
to say, nothing did happen. The Holy Spirit had other plans. Instead I spent
much of the Saturday afternoon consoling a distraught woman. She felt the Nicky
Gumbel video for that day had instructed her to give up her live-in partner of
10 years. Yet she loved and respected him. She and her daughter were financially
dependent on him. A good man, he’d been hurt by divorce and was
disillusioned with marriage.

It
was my first experience of the tensions between the ‘real world’ definition of
family and Church teachings. Do we set too much store on a marriage certificate?
It is, after all, an instrument of State? Does the sacrament of marriage not
rest more in mutual commitment, caring for each other, respect. The vows?

What do you think?

By
the way, I’m finding most of the comments on my blog posts are being made on
Facebook. Thank-you. And I’m gobsmacked to find that these pages have been
viewed from as far afield as Qatar, India and Sweden. Nine countries in all!

Just a reminder, if you feed your email
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Twenty to twenty five years ago I was very much a black and white Christian and then something happened to me. There was no Damascus Road experience, but a slow realization that there are many shades of grey in all our lives. Consequently I have become much more gentle in my approach to various hot potatoes, such as homosexuality, partners, etc. If someone is living with their partner in a loving, committed relationship, who are we to interfere with that. I also think that the marriage ceremony is sort of man made? We have been very good over the centuries at neatening things up, and putting things into pigeon holes. We like to know that this fits here, and that fits there and so we have a handle on life, which causes us to feel secure.

So interesting that the predominantly Catholic Ireland has just voted (in a referendum) for same sex marriage but I think we Christians and politicians often overlook other families - child headed households, grandmothers raising orphans, single parents etc